And when I was younger, I had to walk a mile and a half to school from being 4 years old. Parents round here complain if they cant park on the yellow zig zags to drop their little darlings off!
If I wanted to go in town, I had to ride my Raleigh Nimrod bike 4 miles there and it was 4 miles all up hill on the way back.
I used to earn money by bottling milk at the local farm, cleaning the bottles beforehand. Then helping hay making/harrowing on the tractor (age 13ish) as well as getting up early to deliver the milk before going to school.
Now the kids just stick their hand out and expect parents to taxi them about too!

When I was younger I used to do a paper round before and after school everyday getting up at 0600 everyday of the week and worked Saturday during the day at the local butchers. Only earned 25 shillings in total.
I used to go to school on my own from age of 5 with a long walk either side of a bus ride.
Our windows used to freeze on the inside during the cold months.

When I was younger we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea, even a cup o' cold tea, sometimes without milk or sugar or even tea.
If we'd 'ad a cracked cup, we'd be laffin, or have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper. I remember the best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth. But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son"
E' was right y'know, I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
We were lucky to live in a house though, before that we used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling. I used to have to live in t' corridor, that was after I lived in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. I got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over me! of course when I say house it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
Then we were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake then chucked out of there to living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
Cardboard box? I hear you ask...
We were lucky really.
After that we lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt. But that was a luxury....we used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
Well, of course, we had it tough.
I remember when we used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We ate two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife and then I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our Mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
And you try and tell the young people of today that ... they won't believe you !

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. SocratesIf opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. Milton BerleLeadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because they want to do it. D.Eisenhower

We had no electricity only gas which did the lights and cooker, we used to get dressed to go to bed as it was so cold and scrape the ice of the inside of draughty old windows, extra blankets were eiderdowns with sleeves in other words your over coat, the toilet was outside and the bath was tin and hung on a hook on the outside wall between the WC and coal shed.

The outside toilets had a gap under the door that let the wind blow in and also three big holes drilled in the top part of the door for an air vent, toilet paper was normally old newspaper and there was no light in there at night and it was freezing and stunk to hell, our radio was driven via an accumulator we had to change at the local bicycle shop on Saturday morning on our way back collect a bag of coal on the old pram from the local gasworks.

We used to collect old rags to sell and take beer bottles back to the pub for money as well, mum never had such a thing as a washing machine it was something called a copper in the scullery (kitchen) which basically boiled water and you stired it with what looked like a base ball bat and took the clothes out with a giant pair of wooden tongs.

I could go on and on how we had it and what little we had but that was then and this is now, life is a lot better for children these days but i cannot help feeling they have lost the do and make do.